Near Tokoroa, GSMoss [at] xtra [dot] co [dot] nz
"Organics needs you to be thinking a lot further ahead - you need better management because you can't just phone for urea or supplements."
George and Sharon are running an interesting experiment on their 74 ha conventional dairy and 70 hectare conversion organic dairy farm near Tokoroa. Soils are Taupo pumice ash soils. It was initially a rehab farm and is deficient in most minerals besides cobalt but is very free-draining. Altitude is 1150-1180 ft and frosts can occur all year round.
George had watched his brother Mike's 9 year experience with organic dairying with interest and has been using more natural practices on the conventional farm such as homeopathics, no inductions or CIDRs. Three years ago the neighbouring farm was purchased in partnership with another family. They are now running parallel systems with careful monitoring to compare results. The objective for the organic farm is to be as or more profitable than the conventional farm by year four. George says it may not be a totally fair comparison as the conventional unit is also grass-based system, fairly lightly stocked and uses some organic practices.
The conventional half is 74 ha, calving 185 fresian cows weighing on average 550 kg, with a stocking rate of 2.6. The farm uses serpentine super plus sulphur, 135 units of urea (which has reduced from 220), uses Overseer to optimise nutrient efficiency and buys in 120 big bales of hay and some PKE.
The organic farm is in its third year of transition to Biogro, 70 ha, calving 155 fresian cross cows, average weight 520 kg at a stocking rate of 2.3. It started with RPR (reactive rock phosphate) and elemental sulphur, and now uses either Grahams' goat compost at 2T/ha or Osflo organic fertiliser, and would like to increase that to 5T. The compost is very good on pumice soils to improve water and nutrient holding capacity, and encourage earthworms. Both farms are very vigilant to avoid pugging or pasture damage. Soil organic matter at this stage is similar on both properties, but it will be interesting to see how that develops over ten years, with the repeated application of compost.
The Mosses are strong believers in clover. George draws my attention to the Dairy NZ trials which showed that without urea clover could fix 150kg/ha of atmospheric N. Adding 200 kg of urea suppressed the clover till it did only 30kg N. So the net gain for 200kg urea was only 80 kg N. As urea continues to climb in price this is likely to drive a rethink on many farms, especially as clovers appear to be recovering from the root weevil that decimated them a few years back.
Mastitis has been a problem at drying off, but George believes he can handle it with mineral balance and good management. Sharon (who unfortunately wasn't home that day so I didn't meet her) has been successful with homeopathy on cows with mastitis. Bloat can be an issue but keeping the cows fully fed seems to help. The organic heifers grow as well as the conventional, and both do better than the industry average. The cows in the photo were on the organic unit and certainly impressed with their excellent condition, glossy coats and bright alert eyes. Organic standards prevent any contact between the herds, and any sick animals may not be (and are not) moved across to the conventional herd for treatment.
A major hurdle for organics is the constant tightening of restrictions by USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), with no obvious reason. It is not essential to meet USDA standards to meet Biogro, but export is restricted if you don't. The latest blow is a prohibition on calcium boroglutinate for milk fever. There is nothing toxic about it, it doesn't affect the milk, and it is a very fast acting remedy when a cow goes down.
Dairybase is used to compare the financial and physical performance between the two properties. In the first year of the comparison (the drought year) the organic farm delivered a slightly better profit than the conventional farm. Operating profit for the organic unit was $4,447/ha, outperforming the conventional which did $4,183. The Waikato average that year was $2,865. Production was higher on the conventional block, with the organic unit producing 410kg/cow; 910kg/ha and the conventional unit 470kg/cow, 1100kg/ha. The difference in profitability is in the much lower input costs. George believes the better way to measure profitability would be in return on capital invested rather than pure operating profit per hectare as operating profit per hectare does not take into account capital involved.
In the second year, George believes that the organic will be slightly behind the conventional farm. This was the year of the very high milk prices.
Organics and lower input farming systems appear to have an advantage at the lower milk prices of say sub $5.50. This is confirmed by some DairyNZ data. Any higher profits of the organic, lower stocked system come mainly from the much lower input costs, and premiums paid from the industry. Fonterra pays a 45c/kg of ms premium in transition. When the farm achieves full certification the premium will rise to $1.05 per kg and George expects the organic unit to pull ahead again.
From the point of view of sustaining a family, having higher profitability when times are bad is probably more desirable than peak profit when times are good with disastrous years in between.
Both farms are in the Upper Karapiro Catchment Study funded by EW, Fonterra and Ballance. It is modelling N & P losses, GHG etc and the impact on profit through changing farming systems to meet environmental outcomes. Nitrification inhibitors may not produce the growth on pumice soils that they do in Canterbury. However, on organic farms where so much effort goes into enhancing microbial activity in the soil, it is not clear why suppressing microbial activity would be a good thing anyway.
George has concerns about the EW recommendation to spray fresh effluent on pasture and prefers a two pond system, which he believes reduces the risk of fresh effluent reaching waterways, though it might increase nitrous oxide emissions to atmosphere. Equally, he is also concerned that it cost 1,000 litres or so of diesel a year to spray the effluent and the carbon footprint of that is not great. He quotes a measurement taken by EW that showed more nitrates under the block of pine forest than under the pasture, and clearly more work is needed to get the best farm-specific solution here.
Listen to a conversation between this farmer and Jeanette
